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THE MARKET WHISPERER 25 5

Practical steps to choosing,
configuring, and operating

your trading platform

My Trading Platform

Most how-to books do not provide instruction on trading platforms. I think
that’s a mistake. A trader must know more than just how to choose the
right stock. Traders must be able to choose their platform and know how
to use it. I recall my early days as a trader and the shock of opening the
trading platform for the first time, with no idea where to begin, what to
look at, or how to click the button. Even when I learned the basics on my
own, no easy feat at all, I was still very far from being able to configure
the charts and the platform I currently use. I also remember how on the
first time I visited Chris, my mentor in Phoenix, Arizona, I very precisely
recorded every chart and window and their exact positions on his screens.
The purpose of this chapter is to save you a lot of effort in figuring out, by
trial and error, how to make your monitors work best for you.

The trading platform is the trader’s pipeline to the market. The
platform must be fast, effective and reliable. It does not need to be overly
sophisticated, since such platforms tend to be slow and cumbersome
to operate. Have you ever seen a racecar driver’s cockpit? If not, you’re
likely to be disappointed the first time you do. We tend to think of racing
drivers as needing special, smart controls with a whole gaggle of electronic
devices. The opposite is true: the driver needs very little. What the driver
needs are speed, agility and dependability. The same is true of the trading
platform. Don’t look for unnecessary platform “toys.” Just like the racing
driver, you need a fast, dependable foundation. In the long run, the trading
process is based on just three buttons: BUY, SELL, and SHORT.

During my years as a trader, I have used just seven different platforms.